Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for EdSurge, Jonathan Haber addresses the continual transformation of the classroom and the future of education as technological advances allow for a wider variety of digital, online, and blended learning. 

· How has digital learning provided an alternative to traditional classes in the classroom? How can donors support the digital transformation of schools? 

· Check out this article about the digitization of the classroom and the future of education. 

Has anyone else noticed that some of the new schools being built, including much-celebrated “schools of tomorrow” resemble Google headquarters, as well as each other?

Without ignoring that much of what differentiates one school from another takes place below the surface, the desire to make schools look like high-tech office spaces might be just the latest demonstration that education has historically followed and reflected—rather than led—technological, political and economic change.

For example, “Industrial Era” schools of the early 20th century were designed to reflect what constituted modernity during that period, such as fixed schedules and efficient factory, assembly-line production. They were also built on Progressive Era principles that embraced standardization and centralization, making such early-modern schools a major break from the highly decentralized, non-standard, one-room schoolhouses they replaced.

One can see school reform, and actual schools, continue to reflect society’s dominant cultural tropes regarding modernity. For instance, as mainframe computers, with their centralization of computing power accessed through “dumb” terminals, entered enterprises (and movies) in the 1950s, “The New” returned to an emphasis on decentralized learning (sometimes supported by now-forgotten “teaching machines”).

Read the full article about progressing education and the ‘Age of Alternatives’ by Jonathan Haber at EdSurge.